Events

This week, students at The University of Texas at Austin will be able to talk with and learn from three Nobel Laureates, who are among the world’s top scientists, in a free virtual event April 21-22. The Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative is a global program that seeks to bring Nobel Prize winners in closer contact with the larger scientific community, particularly younger scientists. Students from neighboring universities and from public schools are also invited. This is the first time the event has been held at UT Austin. Since the initiative’s inception in 2010, events have been held at 30 universities on four continents.

In celebration of Black History Month, the Cockrell School of Engineering hosted a panel featuring some of Texas Engineering’s most accomplished and dedicated Black alumni leaders: Tejuana Edmond (B.S. ChE 1998), Milton Lee (B.S. ME 1971) and Dr. Chad Wilson (B.S. ChE 1997). The Feb. 2 event was moderated by Alexander Tekle, a senior in the Cockrell School and current president of UT Austin’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. Over a hundred people tuned in.

The unprecedented scientific mobilization that has produced several viable COVID-19 vaccinations in just a year since the virus’ emergence has been more than a decade in the making. And even after widespread COVID vaccination occurs, the train that created these treatments isn't slowing down anytime soon.

A historic collaboration between the U.S. Army, the State of Texas and The University of Texas at Austin has taken a major step forward with the unveiling of the newly finished Army Futures Command robotics laboratory in the renovated Anna Hiss Gymnasium on campus.

Students, faculty, staff and leadership from academic institutions across the U.S., including The University of Texas at Austin, came together this month in a virtual event to share experiences and barriers facing Black scholars in STEM fields. Hosted by the University of Washington, “Experiences of Black STEM in the Ivory: A Call to Disruptive Action” inspired and challenged participants to take action to address racial inequalities in STEM.

Nearly five years after Monochrome for Austin’s installation on campus — the sculpture of cantilevered, cascading canoes that suspends above Speedway in front of the Norman Hackerman Building — Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin, hosted a virtual event to explore the engineering behind its creation. The event streamed live on Facebook on June 24 and featured a panel of Monochrome artist Nancy Rubins, project engineer Jaime Garza (B.S. Architectural Engineering 2002), Cockrell School civil engineering professor Tricia Clayton and Cockrell School Dean Sharon Wood.

The Welch Foundation, one of the nation’s largest private funding organizations for basic chemical research, is giving $2.5 million to establish the Norbert Dittrich-Welch Chair in Chemical Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering. The chair is named in honor of Norbert Dittrich, who is retiring as the foundation’s president after serving for 26 years in this role.

Thanks to an extraordinary commitment from alumnus and former EOG Resources Inc. President Gary L. Thomas, the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin is officially naming its newest building the Gary L. Thomas Energy Engineering Building. Through his investment, Thomas hopes to ensure UT’s position among the nation’s top energy universities while helping to provide a multidisciplinary engineering education for students.

After calling the W.R. Woolrich Laboratories building (WRW) home for 50 years, the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics celebrated the grand opening of its new home on The University of Texas at Austin campus — the newly renovated Aerospace Engineering Building (ASE).

Over 35 of the nation’s best and brightest women in computational and data sciences came together on The University of Texas at Austin campus last week to network, collaborate and gain insight into what it takes to build a successful career in research and academia. Hosted by UT’s Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics, the Rising Stars in Computational and Data Sciences event was an intensive workshop for women graduate students and postdocs who are interested in pursuing academic and research centers.

Bringing together experts in areas ranging from robotics to space, the Cockrell School of Engineering will host the U.S. Army’s annual Mad Scientist Conference on April 24-25 in the school’s Engineering Education and Research Center. The two-day event explored the individual and convergent impacts of technological innovations on the future of military operations, from present day through 2050.

Members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) met at The University of Texas at Austin on March 7, 2019, to examine the growing role of data analytics in natural disasters and determine how the proper application of data could be used to develop better strategies for disaster preparation and response.

On Thursday, Feb. 21, the Cockrell School of Engineering celebrated the launch of Texas Inventionworks — a program established to introduce innovation and hands-on engineering experiences to all students, creating a new, systematic pathway for them to learn, solve problems, develop products and ultimately launch ventures.

Engineer Your World, a high school engineering curriculum and teacher support program operated by UT Austin and developed by experts in the Cockrell School of Engineering, has been named an “Accomplished Program” by STEMworks and selected by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council as one of 10 “Scale-Up Programs” to be offered in Iowa-area high schools beginning this fall — two national distinctions that illustrate the program’s extraordinary growth since its launch in 2008.

As the inaugural speaker of the new Cockrell School of Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series, The Honorable Rex W. Tillerson — a Texas Engineering alumnus, former chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil and former U.S. Secretary of State — visited The University of Texas at Austin campus on Oct. 25 to discuss the topic of leadership and ethics in a global society.

On a Saturday in April, more than 50 high school students in the Houston area came together in small, multi-school teams to apply the engineering tools and techniques they learned in their Engineer Your World courses, developed by Texas Engineering faculty. The challenge for the one-day Solve it by Sunset Design-A-Thon was to create a product that prevents or mitigates flood damage to residential houses in Houston.

A transformative gift has been made by the Hildebrand Foundation to support the Cockrell School of Engineering’s nationally recognized Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. The gift will provide significant resources for student and faculty initiatives and investments in new teaching and research technologies. In recognition, the university will name the department the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering.

The Women in Engineering Program in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin hosted more than 8,000 children, parents and educators from cities across the state for its 16th annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day and Girl Day STEM Festival on Feb. 25, 2017, a daylong event filled with activities that help spark creativity, inspire future careers and show how engineers and scientists can change the world. Elementary and middle school students engaged in 150 activities and hands-on educational experiences, from designing a balloon-powered car to watching physics and chemistry in action.

The Wireless Network and Communications Group at The University of Texas at Austin, a cutting-edge wireless research group made up of engineering faculty members from various disciplines, will bring together researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering, industry technologists and transportation leaders for its 14^th annual Texas Wireless Summit on Oct. 18, 2016.

On a recent trip to Texas, Secretary of State John Kerry stopped by The University of Texas at Austin to meet with industry experts, UT Austin researchers and local business leaders about the advancements taking place in renewable energy in the Lone Star State.